Tribune Opinion: Guardian Angels are a good option for school safety

Dan Thompson, left, and Del McFarland with Rocky Mountain Guardian Angels, visit Eric McFarland, 16, Del's son and a student at Highland High School, as they patrol the school last year in Ault. Frontier Academy is the most recent school in Weld County to make a bold move to protect its students, by contracting with Rocky Mountain Guardian Angels.

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We applaud the leadership of Frontier Academy, a Greeley charter school, for hiring the Rocky Mountain Guardian Angels to provide armed security at the west Greeley school.

Frontier isn’t the first school in Weld to employ the non-profit group, which was established in response to school shootings nationwide and is staffed by off-duty, armed law-enforcement personnel in plain clothing on school campuses.

Overall, we agree that good guys with guns can be a deterrent to — or they can even stop — bad guys with guns in schools. The Arapahoe High School shooting in Littleton late last year was diminished, according to media reports, because of an armed school resource officer who announced his presence to the shooter. The incident ended soon thereafter when the shooter took his own life.

The Guardian Angels appear to be an excellent alternative to charter schools and small rural school districts that are looking for solutions to school safety.

The organization started it work in Weld County in the Highland Re-9 School District, which serves Ault and Pierce. Del McFarland and Dan Thompson, who are Colorado State Patrol veterans, began the group as they became increasingly concerned about school shootings nationwide.

The two wanted to use their extensive backgrounds in law enforcement to protect “America’s most valuable resource,” as they put it.

The off-duty officers in Guardian Angels will patrol the Frontier school grounds in plain clothes at random, unannounced times.

“They have active shooter training and are 100 percent certified on handguns, rifles and shotguns,” Hare said. “That will be their focus, but they will be the eyes and ears at the schools. We are fortunate to have found these guys.”

Some schools in Weld have gone even further. The Briggsdale Re-10 School District in northeast Weld is allowing teachers and staff to carry concealed guns on school grounds. Only staff members who have gone through significant training are allowed to carry weapons.

Frontier Academy recently experienced an incident that may have raised its awareness level about the importance of protecting students. In early February, police reported “a credible threat of physical harm” was made by a girl at Frontier against several classmates. The girl, a high school student, was hospitalized.

We realize that the presence of trained law enforcement officers, or trained teachers, isn’t a foolproof method of preventing school violence. And we’d encourage area schools to continue to invest training and education toward prevention. Recognizing a serious threat against students before it happens — and getting mental health treatment for the person making the threat — is certainly preferred.

But past history has shown that some school shooters offer little or no advance warning.

It costs money to provide armed protection. The Guardian Angels are paid $20 an hour, and we’d all agree that we’d rather the money be spent on teachers and books and computers. But sadly, today’s society demands that school districts consider options for how to pay for armed security.

Frontier only has the money for part-time random patrols by the angels this year, and it still is searching for a more permanent funding source and enough money to make them full-time next year.

We thank McFarland and Thompson for starting what appears to be a credible and reasonable solution for small school districts and charter schools that are searching for school safety solutions. We think Frontier Academy is taking a wise course of action to do what it can at a reasonable price to protect its students and families.